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What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. That’s the well-known saying but it doesn’t hold if you are talking about Dr. Doom and Gloom. Nouriel Roubini, known for his pessimistic views about the crypto markets, was in Vegas and what he said created a lot of anger among blockchain believers around the globe.

Nouriel Roubini, chairman at Roubini Global Economics and NYU Stern School of Business professor,... [+] during a Bloomberg Television interview in Cernobbio, Italy, on Friday, April 6, 2018. Photographer: Francesca Volpi/Bloomberg

Ι have had two intriguing days at the Blockshow Conference, where I contributed to two different panels. One of them happened to be after Roubini’s speech. He was so adamant in his panel that blockchain is nothing but a scam, or even worse the biggest fraud of the century, so I decided to spend some one-to-one time with him in order to discuss this in detail.

As I walked back from the stage, I bumped into him and asked him to meet me after the conference. He politely agreed and the discussion was on.

I sat by the pool on a lounge chair and tried to cool myself. It was a usual Vegas evening when the temperature starts to cool off toward the mid-30sC. But deep down I knew that this would not continue to be the case, when I would start to speak with Mr Doom. His thoughts on the ICO market and the blockchain industry would not let my temperature go below 50C.

(AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus, File)

Upon his arrival at the pool, I could see that he had a busy day. I offered him a drink and he asked for a cup of coffee. ”In this heat?”, I thought to myself? After a hot drink, one would feel cold anyway. To my surprise, the bar at the pool did not offer coffee, so I had to go outside the area and look for coffee. It was a lucky day. I soon came across Starbucks. Perfect! I walked back with two cups of coffee for us to enjoy, while discussing about the future of blockchain by a swimming pool overlooking the Vegas skyline.

The news broke, another ETF application was rejected, and bitcoin did what it does best, the price fell - pretty much a textbook trade. “So, another ETF application has been rejected”, I remarked. He gave me a blank look. “No surprise there at all”, he replied. “It isn’t the real asset, it is nothing but a fad”. “Well bitcoin futures are trading and it is only a matter of time until someone fulfills the SEC requirements”, I thought to myself. This could happen as early as the first quarter of 2019.

For Roubini, blockchain is nothing but useless and over-hyped technology. It will never go anywhere because of the proof of stake and the scalability issues. No matter what, this is not going to become another benchmark because it is just too slow.

During the conference, his argument started from a typical economist point of view; Bitcoin doesn’t satisfy the definition of money which is medium of exchange, unit of value and store value. It would be completely pointless to discuss the definition of money because there is an equal amount of well-balanced arguments to support the concept that Bitcoin satisfies the definition of money.

I was more interested in his view on the scalability issues. Over the last ten years all sorts of scalability solutions have been discussed, yet the number of transactions per second that can be done with Bitcoin versus the traditional technology such as Visa or master card is simply not comparable.

The second important issue he touched on is the custody issue. Blockchain is bullet proof when it comes to hacking, but exchanges are getting hacked every day. One could argue that this is no different to traditional exchanges and the malfunctions they have to this day. Crypto exchanges are still in nascent stage so it will take time for these guys to make the full system robust. But I agreed with him on the fact that hacking is creating a huge issue and significant measures should be implemented.

We moved on to the issue of decentralization. The concept of blockchain is all about this and yet the current exchanges are mainly centralized. I agreed on this point and added that the exchanges that will actually work will probably come through decentralized exchanges.

Then something he discussed during his pitch at the Blockshow Conference came up. People often compare blockchain technology to the internet at its early stages. “Complete nonsense”, he emphasized. The adoption of this technology is nowhere close to that level.

This is where he is wrong. In fact, we are experiencing a record number of people opening accounts with exchanges. You can now buy properties, cars and a long list of goods and services simply by using cryptocurrencies. Even fixed income products are now available in this space. If you look at the number of transactions that took place back in 2012 and the number of transactions taking place today, even a person who doesn’t understand much about charts will be able to see that the current number is far bigger.

But these banks are hiring crypto guys. Banks like Goldman Sachs, Citibank and a few others are going to open the gate for crypto desk. His point of view was that banks use the three technologies called fintech (internet of things, artificial data and big data) to make changes in our life. “There is no transparency there. Which bank did that? Are the data and its source accurate? Can artificial intelligence execute any command? How can it be trusted? “, I was thinking in my head quietly. Artificial intelligence and big data are not only two sexy words, they also have huge potential. But in my opinion without the blockchain technology, there will be no trust or transparency.

I moved on to the topic of Ethereum. “I hold more Ethereum in my wallet than Bitcoin because of its use case”, I said “ What use case? I don’t believe in the way smart contracts are designed”, he replied “It’s a scam. The whole ICO industry is a scam. People are robbing, raising funds for projects with zero value”.

I objected strongly. It’s true that a large number of ICOs out there have no real value. But you can’t paint the whole industry with the same brush. There are some real use cases of Ethereum, especially on the supply side where governments have adopted the technology and the combination of blockchain and A.I would change the landscape.

Despite our differences, it was a great pleasure to agree to disagree with Nouriel Roubini over a cup of coffee in Vegas.

Disclaimer: I hold bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Nouriel Roubini told me he does not hold any crypto-assets.

I was awarded a national award (Young Irish Broker) in 2010. I have worked with Bank of America in equity trading and with Bank of New York in hedge fund trading, I have

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I was awarded a national award (Young Irish Broker) in 2010. I have worked with Bank of America in equity trading and with Bank of New York in hedge fund trading, I have a wealth of knowledge from trading in the financial markets which spans over 10 years and specialize in forex, commodities and equities. I frequently partake across all major tier one media channels such as CNBC and Bloomberg discussing investment strategies around major macroeconomic and political events. I have often participated in panel discussions on notable events across the globe. More recently, during the Brexit referendum, I predicted the crash in sterling against the dollar to a level of 1.18 in an interview with MarketWatch. I also called the bottom in Crude oil when it was trading near $25 with numerous print and digital financial media outlets. I have also worked with top UK universities to give lectures and delivered an investment and trading course at the London School of Economics.